Medieval

The Meeting of Dante & Virgil, Designed by Francesco de Rossi Salviati, Woven by Jan Rost & Workshop; Florence, Italy, now in Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, 1546-49 A rare and special object is on display at my hometown museum: the Minneapolis Museum of the Arts is exhibiting its own tapestry of Dante Meeting Virgil, from 1549. It was a product of an elite tapestry workshop owned by Cosimo de' Medici, fashioned at every step by top artists with the finest materials. Max B

Bologna is a magnificent city, with an overwhelming number of sites to see, and you could easily miss the small Museo Civico Medievale, off the main street from the Basilica of San Pietro. But if you go there, you'll find a rare, perhaps unique, collection of funerary monuments, and if you're a special kind of geek, you'll appreciate how very different they are from the ones you'll typically find in large and famous museums in Europe. Famous sarcophagi and funeral monuments

Siren Aquamanile, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, circa 1230 Maybe it was the dramatic staging, but this piece changed my narrow mind about a whole genre of medieval art that previously I had just passed by with a shrug of the shoulders as I moved on to shinier objects. At the Kupferstichkabinett, or the Museum of Prints and Drawings in Berlin, there is a a large room of medieval treasures, all products of what is now called Germany and Austria. The item above is an aquamanile:

Christ's Ascension, Ceiling Boss, Norwich Cathedral, 14th century It's a tricky assignment: visually representing a supernatural experience--a disappearing act. The ascension of Christ into heaven, forty days after his resurrection from the dead, is related three times in the New Testament ( Mark 16:19 , Luke 24:50-53 , and Acts 1:9-11 ), but the details are scant and vague. He is "lifted" or "taken, " or "carried" up to heaven. Only in Acts does it say that "...a cloud took

Crucifix of King Ferdinand & Queen Sancha, circa 1063, Ivory and Jet, Madrid Archeological Museum The final scenes in Christ's life (chronologically and cosmologically) reveal his excruciating transformation from human sacrifice to redeemer and ruling god in heaven. Above is the first carved crucifix made in Spain. A crucifix differs from a cross in that it depicts Christ's body nailed upon the cross. So, it is more explicit than symbolic. This crucifix is Romanesque, and i

Flagellation of Christ, Abbey of St. Austremoine, Issoire, 12th century After the representations of Christ rather remote from the moral teachings of the religion (Christ as divine ruler or as harbinger of a new age), there are the stories which present him as an ideal human, or even super-human. Medieval churches were covered inside and out with tableaux of these stories. There developed a standard of depiction which made Christ and the pertinent moments of his life on earth

A Young Christ hands the Law to his Disciples, 4th c., Basilica San Lorenzo, Milan I've wondered and read about the great changes Europeans underwent when they converted (usually at the command of their rulers) to Christianity. Polytheism presented divinities for several crucial aspects of their daily lives--and deaths. A change to monotheism required adherence to one god, who could not be represented in a graven image. The Christian conversion of a town or state gave the n

Resurrection of Lazarus, 12th c. capital, San Piedro el Viejo, Huesca, Spain Stating the obvious: medieval Christian churches reference...

This post is about a portrayal of maternal death and stillbirth--if you'd prefer not to read about this, please stop now. Bas-Relief of...

Once early Christianity became the dominant religion in Western Europe, the Eastern story of a Jewish messiah in a culture under Roman...

The Lamb before the Elders, Revelation 5: 8-10 The Great East Window of York Minster is the largest expanse of stained glass in England,...

York East Window, 1405-7, The Seventh Day of Creation Talk about biting off more than one can chew: the Great East Window of York Minster...

In my previous two posts , I discussed medieval symbolic animals which derived from real-life creatures, and then the Monstrous Races,...

Triton, ridden by Poseidon, backgammon game piece, walrus ivory, Louvre Museum, Norway or Cologne origin, late 12th c. Mythical...

Tiny lion, Worcester Cathedral, 14th c. While much of the ornamentation in a medieval church was instructional or devotional, the...

Portals in medieval churches were often imbued with imagery of the contrast between sin and salvation, punishment and redemption. The...

The sculptural program in Fidenza's San Donnino is an oft-overlooked set of masterpieces. Fidenza is a small town compared to the much...

Often, examining an object found in an old church is a lot like playing "Where's Waldo?" in reverse. You have your "Waldo," the special...

In my last post, I began the Herculean task of trying to give a general overview of demons in medieval art. I came away from writing...

13th c. capital of a sinner being devoured, Saint Pierre, Chauvigny, France A nasty case of Covid pretty much bankrupted my energy for...